Modern quilts with a message: Designing quilt blocks for today’s stories with Kathryn Clark.

Where: Piedmont Center for The Arts

When: Saturday, April 18, 2015, 10am – 4pm

$85 Registration (20 student limit)

The East Bay Modern Quilters are thrilled to announce that our Stitch Modern 2015 workshop will be taught by the artist, Kathryn Clark.  If you don’t already know her by name, I’m sure you’ll recognize her series of Foreclosure Quilts which chronicled the devastation wreaked upon families and communities during the financial crisis.  Her latest project is Block Lab, which revisits the roots of American quilting and updates it to reflect that which is important in the lives of quilters today.

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Workshop description:

We’re no longer living in a world of wagon wheels and churn dashes. Why don’t we have quilts that tell stories about today?

Traditional quilt block designs such as wagon wheel, churn dash and double wedding ring are popular patterns that are deeply rooted in the historic stories of America. It’s time to reinvigorate quilt design and develop new block patterns that reflect our contemporary life and times. From water scarcity to technology, a lot has happened over the last few years in our world that’s worthy of translation into a quilt. This workshop will help students develop their own block pattern based on contemporary topics of their choosing. We will spend the morning brainstorming and sketching ideas and then learn how to translate a design efficiently into a pattern block that can be developed into a quilt.

We will be working primarily in black and white in this workshop and Kathryn will provide you with your basic fabrics.  Please check the supply list for all the other materials you will need to bring!

Kathryn Clark’s work has been featured in such places as The Atlantic, Uppercase Magazine, Poppytalk (click here to see the article and view her beautiful studio!), and New American Paintings and her work has been shown in shows around the country.  She will be teaching the Block Lab series at Arrowmont this summer, so we’re getting a sneak peak of what she will be presenting there!

You can read more about Kathryn Clark and her work on her blog.  Or, read more about her Block Lab series on her Block Lab webpage.

The workshop will be held on Saturday, April 18th from 10am until 4pm at the Piedmont Center for the Arts.  We will have a maximum of 20 students, so sign up soon if you’re interested!